Children’s birthdays are a time of joy, celebration, and of course, delicious cake. But as parents, we often find ourselves strapped for time, energy, or baking expertise. While many parents are happy to head to the nearest supermarket to buy a ready-made cake (or even have one made specially by a local bakery), this is a costly option. If you do want to make your child’s birthday cake but lack confidence in all areas of baking and decorating, fear not! Creating a show-stopping birthday cake for your little one can be an enjoyable and much less stressful experience with a few clever tips, tricks and cheats. In this post, I will explore some easy ways to make your child’s birthday cake using some familiar ingredients (including cake mixes) and a touch of creativity.
1. The Foundation: Cake Mixes and Layers
Every year, I always make the same-sized cake for my children’s birthday cakes. This keeps things simple and predictable. I would recommend buying the following equipment if you are planning on regularly making and decorating birthday cakes:
Two non-stick ‘springform’ 8 or 9-inch diameter cake tins such as these:
A small palette knife or set such as this one:
A plastic cake turntable such as this one:
While they’re not essential for baking and decorating the occasional cake, these items will last you for years and will make the whole process much quicker and easier.
Let’s Get Started!
For a quick and foolproof start, reach for a boxed cake mix! Brands like Betty Crocker (my personal favourite) offer a variety of flavours to suit your child, from classic chocolate to Funfetti (which is basically a trendy word for coloured sprinkles). Just follow the instructions (mix wet ingredients into dry ingredients) on the box for the easiest way to ensure a moist cake and flavorful base to ice for your child’s birthday treat. Mix the batter in a large bowl at medium speed using an electric mixer for a consistent texture.
To add an extra layer of excitement, consider baking a layer cake with different colours. Divide the batter into separate bowls, add food colouring, and pour them into prepared cake tins lined with parchment paper. The result? A vibrant and visually appealing rainbow cake that will surely be the talk of the party! Remember, you can still use a shop-bought cake mix and then divide the batter and add the food colouring for easy, perfect results every time. Just make sure you buy a cake mix that will make a light-coloured cake, rather than something like a red velvet or chocolate cake mix, otherwise the colours won’t show up.
Even with a shop-bought cake mix, always use baking paper/parchment to ensure the cake doesn’t stick to the pan, and let it cool down before removing it from the pans. Cut a circle of parchment for the bottom of the tin and line the edge with a strip of parchment too.
2. The Secret Ingredient: Cake Batter Boosters
For an extra moist and flavorful cake, try adding a little something special to the cake batter. A splash of vanilla extract, maple syrup or an extra egg can make a significant difference. These simple additions contribute to a homemade taste without the fuss of starting from scratch.
3. Crumb Coating for a Flawless Finish
When the cake is cooked and the layers have cooled, remove them from the tins, carefully peel away the baking parchment and leave to cool completely. If you try and ice a warm cake, you’re going to get into a mess very quickly.
Top Tip: When the cake is cool and out of the tins, first use a really sharp knife to slice off the domes of all the layers. Stick the bottom layer to the turntable using a blob of icing or jam, then tip the top layer upside down and sandwich it together with the bottom layer/other layers using icing (buttercream works well), whipped cream, jam, or a mixture of both. This makes the top of the cake a lot flatter and leaves less of a wide gap between the layers that needs to be plugged/filled in with icing. The result will be a much neater, flatter, better-structured cake that will be a lot easier to ice.
Fill in the gaps between the layers with icing or cream, and then, using a small palette knife if you have one, apply a thin crumb coat using whatever you’ve chosen to ice the cake with (more on this later). If you don’t have a palate knife, you can use a butter knife instead. This step not only seals in moisture but also ensures a smooth surface for the final icing. Don’t panic if a few crumbs show through; this is just the first layer.
Chill the cake for a couple of hours in the fridge to set the crumb coat before applying the final layer of icing. Alternatively, you can put it in the freezer for a shorter amount of time, but don’t leave it in for so long that the whole thing freezes!
When you apply the second layer of icing over the crumb coat, you can choose to apply it smoothly, or use the palette knife to create a rougher or peaked texture. This is a personal preference and depends on the look of cake you want. Try experimenting with different textures. You can always smooth it out again if you’re not happy with it.
4. Decorating Delights: Easy and Fun Ideas
For a kid-friendly touch, involve your child in the decoration process. Try creating a “drip cake” effect by pouring chocolate ganache over the top of the cake. This not only adds a touch of elegance but also hides any imperfections. Another simple and fun idea is to encircle the cake with chocolate fingers, securing them with a ribbon. This creates a whimsical border that is easy to do, eye-catching and delicious. For one of my son’s birthdays, I used a chocolate cake mix, and chocolate buttercream, and used chocolate fingers around the edge of the cake before covering the surface of it in smarties. It looked great and was so easy to do.
This video shows how to easily make chocolate ganache and how to get a fantastic drip effect:
5. Other Tried and Tested Simple Decorating Ideas:
- Cover the cake with colourful sprinkles and add an extra large candle/colourful ribbon. I have done this for a couple of my kid’s birthday cakes and it’s really easy/effective:
- Use fresh flowers. I made this small, pretty cake for my daughter’s second birthday. I foolishly didn’t use a cake mix for this one so the cake itself was dreadful, but at least it looked good! Using real flowers is also an environmentally friendly way to decorate a cake.
- I also made a brilliant Frida Kahlo cake which was relatively easy to do by glueing real flowers onto a cardboard base which I then placed on top of the cake:
- Use colourful rice paper decorations. These are really cheap to buy online from places like Etsy, eBay or Amazon. I used these to make this butterfly cake:
- Order custom-made edible or non-edible decorations and toppers. This isn’t the cheapest option and needs some advance planning, but it can be a really effective way to achieve a beautiful, highly personalised cake at a fraction of the cost of ordering one from a professional cake-maker/bakery. I ordered these edible mermaid tails and lettering from a seller on Etsy. I’ve blanked out my daughter’s name but the lettering for this was the same style/font as the number 5:
- Order non-customised decorations and toppers. Inexpensive non-personalised cake ‘bunting’, toppers and decorations come in all sorts of shapes and sizes and can be bought in shops or ordered online for fast delivery. I bought all the decorations for my daughter’s seventh birthday cake last summer from Amazon for a fiver. They are now stored away in a box ready to be used again:
- Make a cake topper yourself. I made my son a ‘Grizzy and the Lemmings’ cake for his fifth birthday last spring and made the topper by printing out the picture, glueing it onto card and sticking a small stick on the back to push it into the cake. Together with some Malteasers and candles, the whole cake was cheap to make and looked amazing – my son thought it was brilliant!
Add plastic animal figures, rosemary sprigs and cinnamon sticks to easily create a beautiful woodland scene cake, like this one I made for my daughter’s 8th birthday.
6. Which Icing?
While I have experimented with different icing options for my children’s birthday cakes, I usually use buttercream, which is basically just butter and icing sugar mixed together. If I’m not making chocolate buttercream, I’ll usually make white buttercream and add food colouring. If you decide to use buttercream, make sure you make enough to sandwich the cake together and cover the whole cake in a nice, thick layer. I use this simple recipe from BBC Food which is enough to fill and cover a 20cm cake:
https://www.bbcgoodfood.com/recipes/buttercream-icing
Beware! Making buttercream that is pure white is actually really hard to do. Butter comes in varying colours of yellow, and therefore ‘white’ buttercream always has a slightly yellowy colour to it. Consider adding food colouring to make a different colour icing for the cake, or if you really do need it to be white, consider using a different kind of icing, such as royal icing (made by mixing icing sugar with a few drops of water) or pre-prepared rolled fondant icing instead of buttercream.
A tip for royal icing: Royal icing that’s made by mixing icing sugar and water will stay quite soft even when it has set. Royal icing that is made using egg whites instead of water will set hard (see this simple recipe/technique from ASDA for how to make it: https://www.asda.com/good-living/recipe/basic-royal-icing?recipe_id=384edc64-2aff-11e9-8802-7daf07a34f81). To get a nice shine on soft royal icing, use a few drops of boiling water mixed with the icing sugar instead of cold water.
7. Other Icing Options:
While buttercream is great for decorating with, check out this helpful page from Cakes and Bakes for some alternatives if you’re feeling adventurous:
8. A Note on Fresh Cream Vs Buttercream:
For a finishing touch that’s both refreshing and delightful, consider icing your child’s birthday cake with whipped cream and fresh fruit. The combination of light, fluffy cream and juicy fruit adds a burst of flavour and makes the cake look so enticing. You could even cut some strawberries into small pieces to mix into the cream before you ice the cake like I did on this cake:
While buttercream and most other icings can be left out at room temperature without spoiling this isn’t the case with fresh cream. Be aware that if you decide to use fresh/whipped cream to fill or ice your cake instead, it will need to be kept in the fridge until just before it’s served. A buttercream-iced cake, on the other hand, should be brought up to room temperature before being served.
9. Shop-Bought Birthday Cake Hacks for Time-Crunched Parents
If the idea of baking still feels too daunting but you want your child’s cake to look homemade, consider a hybrid approach. Consider buying a shop-bought cake and enhance it with your own decorations. This way, you can focus on the fun part — personalising the cake to suit your child’s taste and the party’s theme — without stressing about the amount of time it will take.
Conclusion: The Real Reason for Celebrating
I hope these easy and fun birthday cake ideas will help you to see that there is always an easy way to create a special occasion cake, whether it’s a really simple cake or a masterpiece that has taken hours of thought and planning.
Consider using a cake mix rather than baking from scratch if you’re underconfident in the kitchen, and think carefully about how to ice your child’s cake. If it will be sitting out on a table for a couple of hours at a party before being eaten, or needs to be made a couple of days in advance, it’s best to opt for something like buttercream. If you’re concerned about sugar content and want to go for a lighter, healthier option, consider something like whipped cream and fresh fruit.
Remember, the most important aspect of your child’s birthday cake is the joy it brings. Whether you choose to go all out with a homemade masterpiece or opt for a simpler, shop-bought solution, the love and effort you put into creating this special treat will undoubtedly be appreciated. So, take a deep breath, enjoy the process, and don’t stress about achieving perfect results. Just make sure to have a fantastic celebration with your child, creating memories that will last a lifetime.
I’m certainly no star baker and have had some complete disasters when I’ve tried to make my kid’s birthday cakes from scratch, which is why I now always use a Better Crocker or supermarket brand cake mix. For me, it’s great to have the stress taken out of the baking part (the cake-mix cakes always come out perfectly every time) and this leaves more time and energy to enjoy the decorating part.
Here’s to stress-free baking and many more birthdays filled with laughter, love, and delicious cake! Good luck and happy baking!
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